


The Break-Up Box

by your_favorite_girl_next_door



Series: MLB Meets Taylor Swift [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst and Feels, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Bittersweet, F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Idiots in Love, My First Work in This Fandom, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reminiscing, serious angst, seriously guys why am i doing this to myself, will they/won't they
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:42:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28107984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/your_favorite_girl_next_door/pseuds/your_favorite_girl_next_door
Summary: Based on Taylor Swift's song 'Tim McGraw'Adrien and Marinette broke up three years ago, but when Marinette goes through her break-up box dedicated to Adrien, she decides she wants to tell him how she still feels about him.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: MLB Meets Taylor Swift [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2059215
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29





	The Break-Up Box

“No Alya, I’m just not up for it,” Marinette said into the phone as she exited the elevator onto her floor. Walking down the hallway to her apartment, she listened to Alya rattle on and on about the ‘special guy’ she wanted Marinette to go out with. 

“Girl, you haven’t been on a single date since Adrien left, and that was three years ago. I don’t want to rush you, but I think it’s time. James is a great guy, he’s local, and he’s interested in photography, not modeling, so he’s perfect.”

Marinette squeezed her eyes shut and, taking a deep breath, responded saying “I’m fine, really, and I do appreciate it, but I have a project due tomorrow that I need to work on.”

“Mari-”

“Bye Alya, I’ll call you later,” Marinette said with a tone of finality in her voice. She shoved her phone in her purse and began digging for her keys. 

In truth, she finished her project days ago. Marinette hated waiting until the last minute, so as soon as it was assigned, she was off in her own little world designing. She just didn’t want to hear Alya once again telling her to move on. 

Even after three years, she still carried the flame she held for Adrien Agreste since she was fourteen. Back in lycee, they were inseparable. During junior year, she finally came clean about her crush on him, and she was met with a wide, goofy smile and was enveloped in a bear hug where he just whispered how much he liked her too. 

Finding her keys, she opened her door and stepped in the apartment, shaking off her shoes and dropping her purse where she stood. Slamming her door shut, she leaned against it for a moment and sighed. With watering eyes, she walked into her bedroom. Reaching under her bed, she grabbed the box hidden in the corner nearest to the wall. Marinette pulled it out and lightly touched the writing on the side. Adrien.

No matter how many times she swore she would throw it out, she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. It brought back too many memories to just throw away. Alya always said that breakup boxes were never to be opened after the fact, but what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. 

Marinette took a breath and reached inside for the first time in three years, pulling out a pair of tickets from their first official date, a concert near the Eiffel Tower. Adrien had stayed up all night to get the tickets for them, knowing Tim McGraw was Marinette’s favorite artist at the time. When he handed her the tickets, she remembers his eyes lighting up at how excited she was. Marinette cradled the tickets close to her chest, before setting them off to the side and reaching for the next item in the box. 

Prom has been all her and her friends could talk about. She kept Adrien in suspense for weeks over what she was wearing, much to his disappointment. He had always tried to sneak peeks in her sketchbook or at her mannequin under the sheet, but she had always caught him. Every single time. On prom night, when he came to pick her up, he found her dressed in a short black lace dress of her own design and promptly lost the ability to speak. After lots of teasing from her mother about how ‘sweet’ it was, her mom finally managed to get them posing, and snapped the picture. 

Looking at the picture now, seeing herself wrapped in Adrien’s arms, happily smiling at the camera as he stared down at her, as if he forgot the camera was there, brought an overwhelming surge of tears. Desperately wiping her eyes, she tried to forget how much she missed him looking at her like that. Setting the photograph off to the side, she took a deep breath to steady her breathing. However, when she pulled out the next object, she let out a loud sob.

In her hands was a jar, a jar full of every note he’d written her. Adrien had a habit of needing her to know just how much he loved her, and verbal affirmation wasn’t enough for him. He wrote notes for her, notes that he left just about anywhere. She was constantly finding his little notes on her desk, pinned to her design board, in her backpack, between the pages of her history textbook, anywhere he could find. He wrote anything he thought she would appreciate, but he had a habit of writing about her eyes. He was always so captivated by her eyes, claiming that her eyes made him realize she was the one, which she laughed off and told him to stop lying. 

Not daring to open the jar, she set it off to the side, knowing if she opened it she would call Alya hysterical and Alya would drive over and try to make her feel better, which would ultimately make her feel worse. 

Peering inside the box, she saw the CDs she stored in there. After Adrien had been gone for two weeks, she packed all of the CDs he bought her in the box and refused to listen to them. She couldn’t bear the sight of the notes he wrote all over the traycard, all of the songs that reminded him of her. She tried listening to them, oh boy she tried, but she couldn’t handle it and would always end up crying. 

Moving all of her old CDs out of the way, she pulled out his old Francois Dupont hoodie, the one he gave her before senior year, the one she wore religiously until university. Finally, her trembling hands came across a letter she wrote three summers ago that she never had the courage to send. 

When Adrien first told her his father was making him go finish university in America, he told her they would make it work. He promised FaceTime calls, Skype calls, texting, visits, just about anything to ease Marinette’s worry. In the end, it didn’t matter because the week before he left she invited him over to her house and told him everything she’d been thinking about. 

“Mari, you can’t be serious. Long distance will work for us, we’ll work it out,” Adrien had pleaded. “No! We’re not doing this! I love you, Mari! You’re it for me, there’s nobody else! It’s only you, and it will only ever be you. There’s nobody else, okay? Just you and me, you’re it for me, why can’t you see that?” 

Adrien had tried to come up with every reason under the sun to not end the relationship, but he just was no match for Marinette when she made up her mind, that much he understood. Just before she pushed him out of her apartment, she had said that she didn’t want to hold him back, and then slammed the door behind her. 

Carefully lifting the envelope flap, she gingerly pulled the letter out. A thick letter, full of her regrets and wishes for him to come back and be with her again, written a month or so after he left when her pride finally subsided and it hit her what she’d done. “I hope when you think happiness, you think of my little black dress, screaming all the words to every song on the radio, dancing in my living room to our favorite songs, looking into my eyes while I look into yours. I hope when you think of happiness, you think of me,” she’d written. 

Scanning the writing from years before, it hit her that no matter what, she still loved him and nothing was changing that. 

Shakily standing up, Marinette gave the letter one last look before she shoved it back in the envelope. Even though it was addressed to his New York address, she didn’t want to lose her courage if she took the time to find a clean, new envelope. 

Grabbing a pen off her dresser, she flipped the envelope over to the back and wrote “Here’s a letter that you never read from three summers back.”

Hurriedly putting her shoes back on, she reached down and grabbed her purse and ran to the elevator, letter in hand. She began to fidget as the elevator door opened, then sprinted outside to her car. 

On the way to the Agreste mansion, she contemplated possible scenarios that could happen after she left the letter. Would he run to her and forgive her? Would it be too late? What if he already has found another one who makes his world spin? It’s been years, he probably moved on. Any sane person would’ve. 

When she opened the mailbox, she took a deep breath as she shoved the envelope inside, not wanting to lose her courage. Being alone with her thoughts on the way over was torturous, she had almost turned around to rebury the letter and all of her memories beneath her bed once again, but for good this time.

Now, thought Marinette, I just have to wait.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first mlb fanfic, so I hope you enjoy it! If there's interest, I may make it more than a one shot, so let me know if you want to see more!


End file.
